Connecting buyers to sellers is the purpose of a marketplace, and is the age-old problem in all commercial systems. With the advent of the Internet, new avenues for buyers and sellers to connect have opened, with many websites devoted to purchases and marketing. For direct-to-consumer marketing, websites have been useful, but such websites typically require that the consumer proactively access the website. In non-Internet contexts, salespeople can steer customers to buying opportunities. However, classic salespeople are not available to cause users to make an affirmative choice to go to a website.
Prompting this affirmative choice, Internet technology evolved to include banner advertisements, pop-up advertisements, keyword advertisements, and overlay advertisements among other techniques. Each of these techniques involves some form of advertisement and typically includes a “link” or other opportunity to go to the website of the vendor in question. Unfortunately, click-through rates on such advertising are typically small.
Another phenomenon associated with the Internet is grouping of users because of shared interests. Accordingly, it may be useful to identify interested buyers and present an opportunity to purchase to such identified buyers. Moreover, it may be useful to provide rewards for access to interested buyers.